President Trump with top congressional Republicans and administration officials at Camp David on Saturday. Mr. Trump said that Republicans were looking at changes to the nation’s welfare laws, but that they would have to be done on a bipartisan basis.CreditEric Thayer for The New York Times

By Michael Tackett

Jan. 6, 2018

WASHINGTON — President Trump again insisted on Saturday that he was not under investigation by Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel investigating Russian influence on the 2016 election, adding that “there’s been no collusion, there’s been no crime.”

“Everything I’ve done is 100 percent proper,” Mr. Trump said during a news conference at Camp David, where he was asked about a New York Times report that he had pressed Attorney General Jeff Sessions not to recuse himself from the Russia inquiry. “That is what I do, is I do things proper.”

The president said the Times article, which reported that Mr. Trump had sought to protect himself by keeping Mr. Sessions in charge of the investigation, was “off,” though he did not elaborate.

The two primary issues that Mr. Mueller appears to be investigating are whether Mr. Trump obstructed justice while in office and whether there was collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.

Mr. Trump was at the presidential retreat to meet with Republican congressional leaders and cabinet officials as they fashion a strategy for their 2018 legislative agenda.

On one of the most pressing issues — whether to renew protections for the young immigrants known as Dreamers — the president said he hoped he could strike a deal with Democrats, but added that there would be no deal unless it included construction of a border wall with Mexico, a condition Democrats are unlikely to accept.

The president also again said Mexico would pay for the wall in some form, something that the Mexican government has strongly rejected.

Mr. Trump said that Republicans were looking at changes to the nation’s welfare laws, but that they would have to be done on a bipartisan basis. Democrats oppose such changes, and Mr. Trump seemed to concede that the issue might have to wait behind more pressing matters like military funding and infrastructure legislation.

Flanked by the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, and Speaker Paul D. Ryan, among other officials, the president pronounced his meetings with Republican congressional leaders “perhaps transformative in certain ways.”

He also vowed to campaign vigorously for Republican candidates in the midterm elections.